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MOSCOW — The upper chamber of Parliament yesterday unanimously approved a bill to ban adoptions of Russian children by U.S. citizens, sending the measure to President Vladimir Putin, who has voiced support but has not said whether he will sign the bill into law.

The adoption ban, which was developed in retaliation for a U.S. law punishing Russians accused of violating human rights, would be the most severe blow yet to relations between Russia and the United States in a year marked by a series of setbacks.

The vote in the Federal Council was 143-0, with43 senators absent. By law, Putin has two weeks to act on the bill, but a decision is expected sooner. The bill calls for the ban to take effect Tuesday.

U.S. Ambassador Michael A. McFaul, who criticized the bill after the lower house passed it last week, posted a more restrained comment on Twitter yesterday, noting the fierce disagreement that has erupted within Russian government and society.

“I agree with hundreds of thousands of Russians who want children removed from political debate,” McFaul wrote. “Saddened by Federal Council vote today.”

Since Putin returned to the presidency in May, Russian officials have used a juggernaut of legislation and executive decisions to curtail U.S. influence and involvement in Russia, undoing major partnerships that began after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In September, the Kremlin ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development to cease operations here, shutting a wide portfolio of public-health, civil-society and other initiatives. And officials announced plans to terminate a joint effort to dismantle nuclear, chemical and other nonconventional weapons known as the Nunn-Lugar agreement.

Russia also passed a law requiring nonprofit groups that get financing from abroad to register as “foreign agents,” sharply limiting the ability of the United States to work with good-government groups.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s child-rights commissioner, told news agencies yesterday that, if enacted, the ban could prevent the departure of 46 children ready to be adopted by U.S. parents.

About 1,000 Russian children were adopted by U.S. parents in 2011, more than any other country. The proposed ban has opened a rare split at the highest levels of the Russian government, with several senior officials opposing it. Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, for example, has said the ban would violate international treaties on child rights, and the Kremlin’s own human-rights council called it unconstitutional. Other critics say it would hurt Russian orphans, many of whom are already suffering in the country’s deeply troubled child-welfare system.